


Wizard Mice, Wooden Boys and Other Ways to Spend an Afternoon

by Purrdence



Series: Infinite Coffee & Disney Films [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Baked Betrayal, Disney Movies, Fantasia, Gen, Hair Club, Infinite Coffee & Protection Detail, Noodle Bros, Pinocchio - Freeform, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs - Freeform, it's a fanfic of a fanfic, the Anti-Valentine’s No-Touch Club
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-23
Updated: 2016-12-23
Packaged: 2018-09-11 10:28:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8976037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Purrdence/pseuds/Purrdence
Summary: When Maria Hill decides it's time for you to catch up with all the Disney films, you don't say no.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Long Road Begins at Home](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5339822) by [owlet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlet/pseuds/owlet). 



> This story wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Owlet's awesome Infinite Coffee & Protection Detail series. If you haven't read it yet, go read it now. No, really, go read it first.
> 
> With thanks to Owlet and Gemfyre, who beta-read this story for me. <3

At 0903 Hill calls them on the television. She looks surprised to see Barnes and Rogers sitting on the couch in nothing but sleep pants, hot drinks in hand. Rogers, mug of his old person tea in hand, has the Sheep Pants on this morning – 

GOOD CHOICE

Confirm, Mission. Always glad to see those pants.

\- While Barnes wears the dancing collies (they were the last clean pair) and sips on the white mocha Rogers kindly went down to the coffee bar to get for him, instead of making them go on one of Rogers’s stupid morning runs. They’d only settled down on the couch for a few minutes prior.

“Bad night?” she asks, less briskly than usual.

“We’ve had worse,” Rogers says as Barnes gives a non-committal shrug. “Only one nightmare between the two of us is practically a quiet night.”

Set reminder: stories about man-cockroaches just before sleeping is a Bad Idea and should not be repeated.

Hill grimaces and nods sympathetically. “I understand that.”

Barnes does not ask how. It would probably just give him more disturbed sleep.

Before either of them can ask, Hill states the reason for her call. “I’m invoking the Anti-Valentine’s No-Touch Club.”

Barnes looks at the date on his phone. The kissing holiday isn’t for at _least_ seven months.

Unless there’s another one no one told him about?

UGH

“But it’s June.”

Hill shrugs. “Ok, maybe we’ll just call it the No-Touch Club for now. But since you all enjoyed the animated movies we watched then so much, I thought we could explore some more.”

OHANA, the Mission Imperative supplies happily.

Huh, you really liked that one.

CONFIRM comes the reply, where Barnes can feel there’s more to it than just a simple answer. 

You and I can talk about this later, when it’s quieter.

Barnes nods. “It was a good way to spend time. The movies may be theoretically for children, but they were still very emotionally effective and satisfying. They are on my list of Good Things.” 

The briefing supplies an image of the teenage Bucky-person and Rogers standing outside a movie theatre, the Bucky-person looking dubiously at the poster for a movie about a normal sized girl and seven short men. Or was it seven normal sized men and one very tall girl? The Bucky-person is not concerned a cartoon as long as a regular movie will be any good.

“It’ll be good!” Small Rogers says enthusiastically. “Can you imagine all the work they would have had to do drawing all of this?”

Small Rogers had been so keen about it; there was no way the Bucky-person could say no to him.

“We managed to find some more of those Japanese animations.” Rogers drains his mug and puts it down on the coffee table.

Barnes decides not to say anything about how Rogers needed his handkerchief during the movie about the two little girls with the sick mother, who befriend the giant not-rabbit forest creature. 

Hill looks pleased at helping them expand their movie watching experiences. “I thought a Disney marathon would be a nice way to spend today, being Sunday and all. None of us have to work; hopefully the bad guys are taking Sunday off too; Tony’s off at a conference in Melbourne…”

The idea of watching movies without Stark’s commentary through it _is_ very appealing.

“Which movies?” Steve asks.

Hill holds up her tablet so they can see it. On it is a very long list of titles, with little pictures of movie posters next to each movie titles. While Barnes recognises the misfit blue alien from the movie Mission likes so much, most of the movies are unfamiliar to him. Only a couple of the movies at the top of the list produce a faint echo in his mind.

“I thought we’d start at the very beginning with _Snow White_ and work our way down the list. While the first couple are from, uh – “ She casts around for the most diplomatic and un-Stark like thing to say, if she’s trying to say what Barnes thinks she’s trying to say. 

“Before I became a human ice block?” Rogers offers.

Gee Rogers, we were trying not to go there. You need to stop hanging around Stark.

Barnes glares at Rogers. “Really.”

SUCH A JERK

Yeah, well _you_ wanted contact.

“Yeah, that.” Hill cringes just enough for super soldiers (and maybe Romanoff) to detect. “There’s over fifty animated Disney films now, and that’s not even counting the Pixar movies, or the Studio Ghibli ones that Disney does the English dubs for. The House of Mouse has many fingers in many pies these days.”

“Why do I sense this is going to become a regular occurrence?” Rogers says, although there is more pleasure than suspicion on his voice.

Barnes does some calculations in his head. “There’s no way we can watch that many movies in one day, Rogers. There are only twenty four hours in a day. Also, you insist on sleeping.”

In theory, Barnes _might_ be able to stay awake to watch all these films in one sitting, to do so would bring about one (or many) of Roger’s Very Disappointed in You faces. 

DO NOT WANT

Barnes also doubts that the non-super soldier members of the No-Touch Club would find staying awake that long very pleasant.

“We should invite Hair Club too.”

Only makes sense, 50% of them will be present already. Barnes is sure Potts would enjoy the lack of Starkmentary as well. 

“That’s a great idea, Buck,” Rogers says, breaking out into his ‘I’m So Proud of You’ face.

“I’ll call Potts and Romanoff,” Hill says, also pleased at Barnes’s suggestion. “We should invited Clint too, since everyone else will be coming.”

We forgot Barton.

OOPS

Maybe we need to create a club for him to be in, so this doesn’t happen again. Excluding friends is not mission compliant. 

NOODLE BROS

No.

SUSHI BUDDIES

Maybe…

CARP CRUSADERS

That one is terrible, Mission. He’d probably love it.


	2. Chapter 2

It is agreed that everyone will report to the common area at 0930 hours. Dress code is ‘ultra comfortable’, so Barnes keeps the sleep pants on, but adds a soft, long sleeved shirt. When it looks like Rogers might just go up in only the Sheep Pants, Barnes throws a shirt at him. The Mighty Pecs of Freedom would just be too distracting for everyone and no movie watching will happen.

By some small miracle, approximately half of the white chocolate and raspberry cookies Barnes baked the night before remain uneaten. 

“What are you doing?” Rogers demands, ducking out from underneath’s Barnes’s flesh hand on his forehead.

What does it look like? Is ignorance of the obvious a sign of illness?

“Checking for signs of sickness due to unusual lack of typical eating of most of any given batch of cookies.”

“ ‘Lack of typical eating - ’ “ Rogers has to think about that for a moment. “Wait, you think I’m coming down with something because I didn’t eat all the cookies?”

Isn’t that what I just said?

“Confirm.”

Rogers actually looks offended. “Geeze, Buck, can’t a guy be thoughtful and leave some for others once in a while?”

But it isn’t all altruism when he adds: “Anyway, after all that curry and rice we had at the Carp last night, I was kinda full.”

Rogers, so terrible.

 

Barnes and Rogers are two of the first to arrive in the common area. Poking his nose into the kitchen pantry, Barnes does not fail to notice that the basic ingredients for cookies have started being stocked on a more regular basis than they were before. Taking the hint, he pulls out a new set of mixing bowls, whipping together an Avenger-sized batch of Esther’s Peanut Butter Bliss Cookies as the combined membership of Hair Club; No-Touch Club; and Barton trickle in.

Except.

“Where is Romanoff.”

“She’ll be down for _Pinocchio_.” Barton hovers near the kitchen island, eyeing off the mixing bowl.

“What, she doesn’t like _Snow White_?” Rogers is at the other end of the kitchen island, also eyeing off the bowl. 

Barton is going to have to fight Rogers for it.

“She says it causes too many echoes.” Barton gives Barnes a significant look. “You know.” 

Barnes does.

In regards to the mixing bowl, Barnes takes a third option, offering it to Potts. She is delighted by his offer. “Thank you, Barnes. I haven’t got to lick the bowl since I was a little girl.”

What’s worse than a super-soldier pouting? A super-soldier _and_ a world class assassin pouting. Seems fitting they’re about to watch a children’s movie, if they’re going to act like one.

Barnes sits next to Potts on a couch, where he will have a good view of the screen while having maximum comfort while seated. Despite there being half a dozen other perfectly good places to sit, Rogers insists on squeezing himself into the limited space on the other side of Barnes. Barnes only moves over to give Rogers some room when Potts shifts herself, so Barnes can in turn move over and not have Rogers practically in his lap.

Fine, but the only reason he’s moving is because Potts is being kind. 

For such a small ass, Rogers sure does take up a lot of space.

The movie makes the Briefing hum contentedly, almost like Cat Eleanor. Apparently Small-Rogers and the Bucky-person had been so impressed with the movie, that as soon as they finished watching _Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs_ the first time, they lined back up for tickets for the next screening straight away.

From his reading on the internet, Barnes knows computers are used frequently in the animation process these days, speeding up the production time. Even now, he is impressed that everything in this film was painstakingly done by hand. He wonders why Small-Rogers had never tried to pursue a career in animation. He would have been good at it.

Shortly after the movie finishes, Romanoff shows up carrying bags of public-transport branded bags. They turn out to be long sandwiches, each stuffed to the brim with different combinations of breads, meats, cheeses, dressings and vegetables. Interesting.

In the end, Barnes takes a six inch sandwich of each of the varieties. If he doesn’t care for any of the combinations, he can always pass them onto Rogers to eat. He’ll eat just about anything.

LIKE A GOAT

Barton glares at anyone else that looks like they might be considering eating the rest of the sandwiches filled with a combination called ‘Spicy Italian’.

Romanoff gives Barton a flat ‘really?!?’ glare. 

Collecting up the rest of the Spicy Italian sandwiches onto a plate, Barton retreats to his climbing frame. He reminds Barnes of the ugly, little skinny guy in those movies where everyone is obsessed with jewellery. “This is as close as I’m getting to pizza right now, Natasha. Mine. All mine. Preciousssssss.”

In addition to the bags that the sandwiches were carried in, there are a few more bags from the same store. Curious, Barnes looks in. 

One of the bags is full of individual sized bottles of soda, of various flavours of sugary water. The other – 

WHAT

“What is this.”

Romanoff appears, looking at the contents of the bag irritably. “I _told_ them something like three times we didn’t need those.”

She digs the paper receipt out of one of the other bags. “At least we didn’t _pay_ for them.” 

Barnes stares at the cookies. “Why would they give us all these.” 

Romanoff shrugs. “Maybe ‘cause I pretty much bought most of their stock in one go? Sometimes people around here recognise us and comp us food to say thank you for saving New York. Who knows?” 

He bites into a cookie with M&Ms in it. The cookie, though large, is somewhat soft and slightly chewy. 

OURS ARE BETTER 

Are you jealous that people will like these more? 

The Mission doesn’t reply; it just sits there in Barnes’s chest, radiating contempt towards the store-bought cookies. The Mission practically _glowers_ at him as he finishes off the cookie. There’s no point in wasting food. 

DON’T CARE 

The Briefing chooses to not stay out of it and replays scenes of Barnes baking with Esther. 

Knowing they’re not going to shut the fuck up about it, Barnes looks around for the mixing bowl. Someone, probably Potts, put all the baking equipment into the dishwasher while they were watching the first movie. That was kind of them. 

Looking at the ingredients at hand, he goes with choc-chip this time. 

“More cookies?” Rogers leans on the kitchen island, looking pointedly at the pile of cookies in the bag. 

“Trying to get the Mission Imperative to calm the fuck down. It’s being pissy about them.” 

Barnes nods at the pile of baked betrayal as he measures out ingredients. “I want to be able to watch the movie in peace.” 

Rogers waves over Barton, who quickly agrees to spirit away the offending items to his own apartment. Good choice – while not a super-soldier, Barton’s appetite almost rivals them some days. 

At Barnes’s insistence, they start the next movie while he’s finishing up with the latest batch of cookies. Once the dishwasher is loaded and running, he returns to the couches. While Rogers is still on one side of him, Potts is sitting elsewhere and Romanoff has taken her seat next to Barnes. 

_Pinocchio_ is harder to watch than he would have expected to. He hadn’t remembered that Pinocchio was a wooden puppet created by others, having to then choose to be good rather than bad. 

Like choosing good-guy non-lethal. 

The little wooden boy even has his own Mission Imperative, but in the form of a cricket. Highly impractical way of doing it, when he starts to think about it. And all the _singing_. 

But if Rogers was trapped in a whale in the middle of the sea, Barnes knows he’d be the first one on the rickety raft to look for him. 

PROTECT 

I know, I know. Eat your damn cookie. 

It gives him hope when the Blue Fairy shows up, making the wooden marionette into a real boy. On his bad days it _would_ be nice to have someone just wave a magic wand and fix everything; hell, Thor had offered something similar. But yet Barnes decided to stick it out and work towards ‘Real Boy’ status in his own way, and that’s ok. 

Barnes uses the excuse of needing to get more choc chips from the apartment, in order to get away from the others while he feels a little raw and tender. He sits in his safe spot on the couch for ten minutes before everything is back at calm baselines. 

He grabs white chocolate pieces as well as the milk chocolate ones. There can’t been such a thing as ‘too much’ chocolate. 

Since he’s on the move anyway, he makes a quick detour to the coffee bar. Coffee always makes things better. 


	3. Chapter 3

He had expected to have missed the beginning of the next film; or at least have everyone waiting for him. Instead, Romanoff and Barton are just lounging around, drinks in hand. Rogers sketches Romanoff and Barton lounging around. Hill is playing on her smartphone. Banner and Potts are no-where to be seen. 

“Are they coming back.” This time Barnes and Rogers get the couch all to themselves, allowing them to spread out.

“Pepper will be,” Hill says, not looking up from her phone. “Tony called. It’s probably 4am over there, so who knows why he was up so late. Or early.”

“Bruce didn’t feel up to a third movie.” Steve quickly looks up from his page to look at his art subjects, then it’s eyes back down on the page. “Said he needed some quiet time and he remembers parts of _Fantasia_ scaring him as a child.”

Understandable. This is probably not the best place for Green Thing Hulk to make an appearance. 

Knowing what Stark can be like when he starts talking when he’s excited, Barnes uses the time to go back to the apartment again to grab a book. 

He’s in the midst of a slow as molasses chapter where the little hairy feet guys encounter some wild man in the woods (he sees why they cut this from the already long enough movies) when Potts returns. 

“I’m so sorry about that. You know how Tony gets.” Potts flops onto an armchair, taking a large, probably alcoholic drink from Hills.

The chorus of murmured agreement makes it clear they all know how Stark gets.

 _Fantasia_ is a very different movie than the first two movies. Instead of being a story with music placed into, it is music with animated stories woven around it.

Barnes wonders why Banner would find dancing flowers and classical music disturbing. He must have had a strange childhood.

When a wizard mouse tries to get out of doing the hard work with his chores by using magic to create helpers and it all goes horribly wrong, Barnes has a thought. 

Replace brooms with robots…

He pokes Rogers and leans in closer, talking under his breath. “Stark.”

“What?”

He pokes Rogers again, then in the direction of the mouse. “Stark!”

The light bulb finally goes off over Rogers’s head. “Oh!”

Rogers has to clamp his hand over his mouth to muffle his laughter.

Barnes settles back into the couch, letting the music and animation envelope him. A segment on the universe and dinosaurs plays, reminding him of all the cool junk they saw at the museum Rogers took him to on his birthday.

He becomes so engrossed in the movie, that he doesn’t notice Rogers’s posture stiffening. It isn’t until the intermission (which shows how old this movie really is, to actually have one) that Barnes notices Rogers trying to stuff down Strong Emotions again. 

Turns out Barnes isn’t the only one to notice. Hill actually pauses the film. “You ok, Steve?”

“I…” Rogers tries to form words, but he can’t do that and keep it together at the same time.

The Briefing tugs at Barnes, replaying a conversation between Rogers and Flying Sam, back from the days when they still lived in DC.

“The last time we saw this, that was before you got big and stupid, right?”

Rogers looks over at him. “Yeah,” he says, voice thick.

“What’s this about?” Romanoff has her blank face on, but Barnes can see the concern hovering behind it.

Barnes speaks for Rogers. “Before he got all buffed up and heroic, Rogers here didn’t hear so well. Didn’t see so good either – his colour vision was kind of shit too.”

Rogers nods rapidly, trying to keep that big jaw of his stoic, but he’s crumbling rapidly. Since he’s probably forgotten his own, Barnes holds out his handkerchief to Rogers.

“So this is the first time you’ve seen this and been able to see and hear it properly?” Potts says, stating the obvious, but still doing it gently and with kindness.

Rogers nods again, pressing the handkerchief against his eyes. “It’s all so beautiful, but it’s overwhelming too.”

What should he do?

Reaching out, Barnes grasps Rogers around the wrist. It takes a few minutes, but Rogers relaxes and the tension in his shoulders ebbs away. They sit like that while Barton and Romanoff get up, mixing stiff drinks for everyone in large glasses.

“We can finish this another day, if you want, Steve,” Potts offers.

Pepper Potts, so kind.

Rogers takes a moment to consider her offer. It is good that Rogers’s friends (at least the ones here in the room) are thoughtful and allow for situations like this.

The Briefing lets a giggle bubble up. Rogers looks at Barnes, confused. “What?”

Barnes feels the edges of his mouth curl up as the Briefing lets him see the rest of the download. “Do you remember Martha O’Flynn?”

Rogers looks up at the ceiling as he searches his own memories. Must be hard not having a Briefing to help with stuff like this. Another giggles comes up from Barnes’s lips. It’s usually the other way around, isn’t it? 

“Martha… Martha… the girl that worked at the book store near the fish mongers?”

Barnes nods. He looks up at the ceiling too, when he realises everyone else has gone quiet and is looking their way.

When it look like Rogers is going to take the rest of the week to figure it out, Barnes looks pointedly at the movie paused on the screen.

“Oh!” Rogers _finally_ says. “ _Martha O’Flynn._ ”

“You going to share with the rest of the class, Steve?” Barton looks at them, expectantly. 

Chuckling, Rogers tells the story. “Bucky took Martha O’Flynn to see _Fantasia,_ when it first came out. It was supposed to be a double date with her sister, but her sister got a headcold. I tagged along anyway, because there was no way I was missing out on the new Disney film. Martha wasn’t too happy about that. But it was what Bucky did that really pissed her off.”

Now everyone’s leaning in, waiting to hear what happened next.

“Martha didn’t care about the movie. Just wanted to make out,” Barnes adds quickly, feeling some embarrassment for the Bucky-person.

“Bucky, on the other hand, spent the whole movie with his eyes glued to the screen. Didn’t even notice when she walked out at some point before intermission.”

Barnes waves a hand at the screen. “She obviously needed her eyes checked. It’s a good movie. Even the kid who couldn’t see so good, could see that.”

They all laugh at that. It’s the honest truth. This Martha person should have just been patient; there would have been plenty of time for kissing with the Bucky person _after_ the movie. And what a waste of movie ticket, if you’re not going to actually _watch_ the movie?

HER LOSS

After a quick break for restorative grilled cheese, they go on with the second half of the movie. Much later in the movie, Barnes understands why child-Banner would have been frightened by if he saw this movie when he was small. 

This is a movie people took _children_ to?!?

Maybe it’s a good thing they’re watching it during the daytime.

Eventually the demons are vanquished and the movie comes to an end. Building JARVIS brings the lights up. “Shall I play the next movie?”

Hill looks around at the assorted members of Hair Club, No – Touch Club, and Barton, who look like they’re ready for a nap.

SOUNDS GOOD, ACTUALLY

“I think we’ll save _Dumbo_ for next week,” she decides.

When he and Rogers are back in their apartment, Barnes looks up the synopsis of this _Dumbo_ movie, which has nothing to do with Brooklyn, much to his disappointment. Probably best they’re waiting to watch it, then. There’s only so many accidently allegorical movies they can watch in one sitting.

It’ll be interesting to see if Rogers can see himself in an elephant with big ears.


End file.
